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Age: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Let’s see: after running around like crazy, making phone calls, sending emails, etc., I finally have a little time to contemplate my lint-ridden navel.
As this post indicated, I recently had a birthday. I have been so busy I haven’t even had the time to celebrate it, but rest assured this will come to pass. Instead, I spent my birthday peacefully and for that I am grateful. Once you have become grounded FIRMLY in your thirties the novelty wears off, trust me.
Lackadaisically touching-up my hair has become a thing of the past; I have one petulant grey hair in the middle of my forehead that serves as constant reminder of this fact. One of these days I’ll name it. I’ve been tossing around the notion of naming this hair after one of my shitty ex-boyfriends (because I have no doubt that one of them is responsible for it), but shitty exes are to me what child molesters are to NAMBLA: there are many. Too many.
No, sir: getting older doesn’t bother me much (it’s not like I can do anything about it anyway). Being sneered at by the affluent nubiles who are rapidly (and vapidly) colonializing my ‘hood doesn’t bother me much either. I suspect know I did the same thing when I was their age and now it’s their turn. The only thing that does piss me off about getting older is being gently reminded about it by people who are OLDER than me. Misguided attempts to shame me into behaving like a responsible adult, about this I have no doubt. I have tried to be an ‘adult’: it was the worst two years of my life.
To date my favorite example of this not-so-subtle (familial) chiding was a turd of a message my husband’s aunt left on our answering machine a few months ago (for my husband’s birthday):
Hello, this is your aunt Judy wishing you a happy birthday. I suppose you’re both out painting the town red. Better enjoy it while you can because you’ll both be forty soon.
WTF?!? Perhaps I am in denial, but I find this woman (who is nearing retirement) stating (OVER A FUCKING ANSWERING MACHINE) that I’m getting old a bit hypocritical— and foolish. Unlike my husband (who is painfully nice), I have a mean streak. A mean streak, I will add, that has only gotten more virulent with age. Experience has taught me how to exact the maximum amount of punishment for the various and sundry offenses perpetrated against my person with the minimal amount of effort.
God has it ever.
Thankfully, that bag of Polaroids my buddy Racheal gave me has proven to be a veritable arsenal for my vengeance. It has become to me what the “magic bag of tricks” is to Felix the Cat. Only meaner. Much meaner.
Guess what “Aunt Judy” is going to find in her inbox when she retires this April? Don’t everyone answer all at once…
Miss Heather
P.S.: I love the bottle of booze under his left arm. I wonder if this is some secret Greenpoint burial ritual I don’t know about?
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